L&T Infra's Rs 200 cr bonds issue oversubscribed: CEO

MUMBAI: Contrary to concerns being raised about a lukewarm investor response, Larsen & Toubro's Infrastructure Finance arm's Rs 200 crore retail bonds issue has been oversubscribed, a top company official said.

"I do see some oversubscription (but) I can't say how much. I do see some small oversubscription," L&T Infra's Chief Executive, Suneet Maheshwari, said on the sidelines of Indian Private Investors Conference here on Friday.

L&T had come out with its Rs 200 crore retail tax saving bonds issue last month which had an option to retain oversubscription of an additional Rs 500 crore.

Maheshwari said L&T's decision to extend the closing date for its issue by nearly a fortnight to November 15 has paid-off.

"We had extended the date because a lot of investors had locked their money in Coal India (IPO) and we have seen the benefit of it (extension of closing date)," he added.

L&T's peer in the infrastructure finance companies space, IDFC, had fallen short of its target of raising Rs 600 crore through a similar issue last month even after extending its date and managed only Rs 436 crore.

However, the country's largest lender State Bank of India, which had also launched a retail bond issue during the same time sans the tax saving advantage, had witnessed a whopping 17 times oversubscription.

Maheshwari termed the response to L&T Infra Finance's issue as "good" and added, "we think we will cross Rs 200 crore, (by) how much you will know on the 16th."